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| | Issue #19.49 :: 07/02/2008 - 07/08/2008 | Whispered smears
| BY MURFEE FAULK
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Paul Broun on the campaign trail.
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AUGUSTA, GA - Congressman Paul Broun blames the “good ol' boy network in Atlanta” for an ongoing whisper campaign against him. He calls it a sign of desperation that some are trying to tear him down late in the campaign, even though Broun’s polls show him leading 3-1 over challenger Barry Fleming.
Still, Broun admits that he wasn’t always a choirboy.
“I have been up front about my past and what I was like before I dedicated my life to Jesus Christ,” said Broun on Monday. “I’ve even spoken about it on the House floor. It’s nothing new.”
The campaign of Barry Fleming, Broun’s opponent in the Republican primary for the 10th Congressional seat, dug around in Broun’s closet and announced last week that it had incriminating documents proving a knock-down, drag-out match with man’s two long-term nemeses: an ex-wife and the I.R.S.
Both of those occurred in the early 1980s and were the subject of rumors during Broun’s battle with Jim Whitehead in 2007.
Last week’s smear campaign, however, offered a new twist. It held that Broun, a physician, was kicked off a hospital staff for some nefarious, and undisclosed, reason. Broun says that smear is “completely false.” Broun says he did leave one practice during contract negotiations, but that there was nothing much to it but a personal choice.
The consensus among observers is that there is a smear statute of limitations, and even Whitehead himself said that he chose not to use the information in last year’s special election.
The Fleming campaign says the information may be old, but it fits a pattern that voters should be aware of when they vote July 15.
“That poor judgment that was there then is still there now,” said Cam Kirbo, chairman of the Fleming campaign.
Others, however, say the poor judgment rests with the Fleming campaign and the Republican leadership that has allowed such smears to spread. | |
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